


What's in a Name?

by BMP



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 2K Round-up Challenge, Gen, Humor, Magnificent Seven AU: ATF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BMP/pseuds/BMP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sticks and stones...  You know the rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a Name?

**Author's Note:**

> These characters do not belong to the author (but if it were our sandbox, we’d let YOU play in it…) That said, this story was written purely for self entertainment and no money is being made, has changed hands, or has been paid out for the contents therein. Special thanks to V for cheerleading. Special thanks to GSister, since without her patience and insistence, I never would have posted anything.
> 
> ~Constructive Criticism will be passed on to the author  
> ~Flames will be used to toast marshmallows

****

What’s in a Name?

“You can’t take it personally, Kid,” Buck said, breezing past J.D. and plopping down into his desk chair with a satisfied grunt.

“I’m not a kid,” J.D. snarled back, stopping so abruptly in the bullpen doorway that Ezra Standish nearly plowed into him from behind.

Ezra rolled his eyes where Buck could see him. “You are not helping,” he mouthed precisely, knowing Buck could read his lips just fine and gave J.D. an irritated “Excuse me.” He smoothed down his tie as he brushed past. 

J.D. got part way through a sentence that began, “You know, maybe if you guys would act professional…,” then blanched as Chris Larabee, their boss, who he had not noticed sitting there next to Vin’s desk, put a boot against the side of the desk and shoved the chair he had commandeered backward into the narrow aisle. Without bothering to get up or sit up straight or change his deceptively relaxed posture an iota, he gave all three of the agents who just entered a searching glower. But it was Buck who got pinned with the question of how the meeting went.

Buck twirled a finger in the air to indicate his disdain for, well could have been anything: his fellow federal agents, Ezra’s attitude, his boss’s irritated slouch, meetings in general, the weather, the fact that they worked on the eleventh floor, or what the cafeteria was serving for lunch today. His answer was even less precise. He gave Chris a shrug and a little crooked moue of distaste and said, “You know.”

The Senior Agent’s green eyes lasered back onto J.D. like one of Vin Tanner’s precision sniper sights. J.D. knew he’d been a member of the team plenty long enough when he could read Chris Larabee’s unspoken words hanging in the air as well as just about anyone. In this case the telepathic message hanging there for the whole team to read was “What’s J.D. whining about then?”

J.D. gritted his teeth, and maneuvered quickly around Chris to get to his desk.

Ezra answered, without even looking up. “Agent Dunne is overly concerned about some unflattering character assassination lobbed in his direction.” His tone had passed disinterested and settled on boredom.

J.D. slapped the manila folders in his hand against his desktop and realized it was his chair that Chris had commandeered.

He glared at Buck and Ezra. “Well thank you, team, for jumping to my defense.”

Buck snorted. “Sticks and stones, J.D.”

“They called you an asshole!” J.D. said, demonstrating the proper outrage that a person ought to display when someone insulted a member of your team, your family, your brothers in arms. 

“Ain’t like no one’s called him that before,” Vin put in.

Buck’s hand gesture amply demonstrated his lack of both caring and professionalism. 

Chris uncurled himself from his stolen desk chair and shoved it in J.D.’s general direction. It failed to navigate the curve and banged up against the corner of Vin’s desk. J.D. gave Buck a nasty glare as he went around Vin to get his chair. Buck was unfazed. 

“What’d they call you?” Vin asked J.D., as the younger agent rolled the chair around behind him. The sniper sounded amused.

Chris inhaled, which was a clear signal that the conversation should probably have ended back when Buck said “You know…”

So J.D. didn’t answer.

Too bad Ezra didn’t feel like cooperating, or reading signals, or just minding his own business today.

He looked up at Vin thoughtfully and said with careful precision. “I believe they said he was a snot-nose, green-horn, wet-behind-the-ears know-it-all.” His eyes slid toward Buck for confirmation.

Buck agreed. “Sounds right.”  
Vin nodded. Nodded! Like he had evaluated the appraisal and found it accurate.

J.D., still standing, took a deep breath as a red hot flush crept up the back of his neck.

Vin frowned at him. “You know it don’t mean nothing,” he said.

“It certainly does mean something,” Ezra spluttered. He looked at Vin with both disdain and outrage. “It smacks of professional jealousy.”

“Ah,” said Josiah Sanchez, who until this moment had seemed to be completely absorbed in whatever was in the enormous tome sitting on his desk, bound in what looked like it had originally been some kind of red cloth which seemed to be growing moldier and disintegrating right before their eyes. 

Buck, Ezra, Vin, and J.D. all looked at Josiah to find out what exactly “Ah” meant. Even Nathan Jackson, who had up until this moment assiduously kept his head down, which seemed to be his standard go-to tactic whenever Buck and Ezra were involved in anything together, looked over at Josiah curiously.

Feeling their eyes upon him, Josiah looked up. “What?” he asked. Their gazes stayed put. “I said, ah,” he repeated. 

“Ah?” J.D. asked. “That’s it?” He looked at the other faces incredulously. “What does ‘Ah’ mean?”

Josiah’s gray brows lowered and he squinted at J.D. as if he were some sort of puzzle for the profiler to unlock.

From somewhere near his office door, Chris gave a sigh. “It means, J.D. that people are gonna call you names. Deal with it.”

That was supposed to be the last word, J.D. figured. 

But then Buck snickered. “Don’t mean it ain’t true, though.”

Chris gave Buck a look that should have left burn marks, but years of experience had rendered Wilmington’s hide pretty much impervious.

“’Specially in your case,” Chris snapped. 

“Hey!” Buck said. 

Vin grinned toothily. “What Chris means,” he said pointedly, “is that Buck’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”

The edge of Buck’s lip curled and he turned away from Vin. “Do you think you could phrase that different?”

Vin sneered at him then turned back to J.D. “Look,” he said, “you’re our…” he trailed off, looking to Ezra for help.

“Snot-nose, green-horn, wet-behind-the-ears know-it-all,” Ezra supplied. 

“Right,” Vin said, giving Ezra a nod of thanks. “You’re our snot-nose, green-horn, wet-behind-the-ears know-it-all,”

J.D.’s protest was drowned out as Vin continued. “Like Buck’s our self-impressed, misogynistic narcissist.”

“I am not a misogynist!” Buck protested. “I love women. Ask anyone!”

Vin ignored Buck and continued on, pointing at Ezra, “and Ezra’s our…”

“insufferable, self-aggrandizing, mercenary…” Buck jumped in.

“Larcenist,” Nathan finished.

“Right,” Vin said.

J.D. stared at Ezra, who smirked at insufferable and self-aggrandizing but looked downright affronted at larcenist.

But by the time Ezra would have opened his mouth to speak, Vin had moved on to Nathan, their “self-righteous, holier-than-thou, quack, wanna-be medic.”

Josiah put down his pencil, leaned back from his book and smiled benignly as Vin, with Buck’s help, labeled him their “psycho-babbling, incoherent, rambling, wacko profiler.”

“And then there’s Chris,” Buck said, smiling toothily at his leader. 

“Right,” Vin said. “Our...”

“Irredeemable,” supplied Ezra.

“Misanthropic,” Josiah suggested.

“Psychotic,” Nathan added.

“In serious need of professional help,” Vin said.

“Bastard,” Buck grinned.

“Team Leader,” Vin finished happily.

J.D. looked over at Chris, who would have been perfectly justified if he were wondering why he had not shot every single one of his agents by now, but just swept his green gaze over his room full of agents and went into his office, satisfied that the point had been made.

And maybe it had. 

Maybe it had been when Chris had just said “Deal with it.”

Of course now J.D. understood what “Deal with it” meant. Like Buck, he could write off the offenders as asshats. He could take it as professional jealousy like Ezra did, envious words from small-minded people, which of course meant it was kind of a compliment. He could, like Nathan, consider the source and take prudent action as necessary. He could be amused at the many facets of human nature, like Josiah, or he could just decide, like Chris, that only a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of all the people in all the world had opinions that counted, and the rest of the people could take their worthless opinions and go straight to hell. Or, like Vin, he could…

“Hey wait!” J.D. said.

His teammates stopped the work they had begun and looked up at him. 

“If I’m a snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears know-it-all, and Buck’s a narcissistic whatever, and Ezra’s an insufferable larcenist…” He ignored Ezra’s fledgling protest and kept talking, “and Nathan’s all holier-than-thou, and Josiah’s a wacko, and Chris is, well,” he didn’t quite feel comfortable calling Chris a psychotic bastard so he left off right there, to Buck’s amusement. 

He pointed at Vin. “What about you?”

“Me?” Vin asked. He gave a thoughtful grunt and contemplated the ceiling for several silent seconds. “I got nothing,” he said finally, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

J.D. glowered at him. “Seriously?”

“Hell, kid,” Vin grinned. “Everybody likes me.”


End file.
